Essential Ahriman

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

I love the Ahriman model, it is one of my favorite models produced by GW and has aged far better then a lot of models his age. However, after seeing BasetheRuin's Abbadon http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...k-Legion/page9 the idea of making my own attempt at the Chief librarian of the Thousand sons has crept in, growing in strength to the point where I have decided that it will be a nice project to to try and do for next years Golden daemon.

However, I am not entirely sure what to include and such that define's Ahriman, the elements I have decided I must include are:

The Goat skull on his shoulder pad. This feature is one of my favourites, and one I wish was on all sorcerer models, will take a while as my previous attempts at this symbol for my other sorcerers did not work, so I will have to work/practice on it.

The Black staff of Ahriman: It's one of the most iconic pieces of equipment in 40k, and again a really nice piece of the model, and could proberbly be taken from the stock model without any problem, though a conversion using the terminator sorcerer/lord kit.

Robes/cloak are a given as well, he seems to have both and they are kind of iconic of his figure.

An ornate bolt pistol: Not sure if I could take it from the current model, or should modify a regular marine one.

Helmet decoration: Now this I am not sure on, should I keep with Horn's he is usually depicted as having, or go for a headdress more similar to that of his legion brothers? Speaking of the helmet, what Mk armour would be the best? At the moment I am leaning towards using the FW mkII or MkIII, I will have a look at my copy of the horus heresy artbook and the picture where he and his bodyguard are at Horus's council, and their armour is shifting to blue. Speaking of his bodyguard, I am hoping their are rules for him to take a retinue of some kind in the new codex, if not either a chosen/rubric or terminator squad will have to suffice.

The cables on his chest armour, I love these kind of details, so they are in, possibly use MKVI Chest parts?

I'm not sure on the 4 sphered backpack, but not sure what else I caould do that would be fitting.

I certainly want a different pose, something more regal and dignified then the current one.

Might one of the Dark angels from the Dark Vengeance set be a good base? or would they not be good enough?

EDIT: Decided I am going to base him off the council artwork in collected visions, and possibly using Sicarius as a base, but still not sure on that backpack...